This is a website about the British Rail Corporate Identity from 1965–1994 which includes a wealth of digitised examples of British Rail design material collected over several years. I hope you find it useful and inspiring, whether you're a practitioner or historian of graphic design, a scale modeller or simply a connoisseur of corporate design at its aesthetically satisfying best.
posted by jack_mo
on Oct 22, 2016 -
16 comments

Randall Munroe observed a while ago: "In months other than September, the 11th is mentioned substantially less often than any other date. It’s been that way since long before 9/11 and I have no idea why.” David Hagen investigates. (The real culprit? A trend in font design from the late 1800s.)
posted by nebulawindphone
on Dec 30, 2015 -
18 comments

"Mark Z. Danielewski knows he’s embarking on a journey as unlikely as it is impressive. “On one hand it’s ridiculously ambitious,” Danielewski says. “But, on the other, maybe it’s just a little more transparent about an ambition that many people have in their profession.” Danielewski, almost certainly America’s most renowned and popular experimental writer, is already known for exploring and expanding the novel’s outer edges. Yet his newest project is an undertaking that will take him years, even decades, to complete. One Rainy Day in May is the first volume of The Familiar, a project slated to fill an epic 27 volumes. That’s right, 27 volumes.

Would you believe that the artist who designed in engraved Roman letters the slogan, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…” atop New York City’s main post office at Penn Station is the same man who designed the famous, iconic Superman comic book logo? Both are the works of Ira Schnapp (1892-1969), a descendant of stonecutters, calligrapher and hand-letterer who defined the “house style” of DC Comics for over 30 years...

Ira Schnapp, DC Comics Sr. VP for Advertising, and logo designer extraordinaire, is the subject of an exhibit and lecture at the Type Director's Club of New York.
Read a ten-part comprehensive bio with lots of examples of Schnapp's work at Dial B for Blogstarting here. And if that's not enough, here are the firstthreeparts of an ongoing five-part series on Schnapp based on Arlen Schumer's upcoming lecture at the Type Director's Club.
posted by marxchivist
on May 5, 2015 -
3 comments

Among web-publishing tools, I see Medium as the equivalent of a frozen pizza: not as wholesome as a meal you could make yourself, but for those without the time or motivation to cook, a potentially better option than just eating peanut butter straight from the jar.

According to the website of the Independent newspaper, LEGO UK has verified the 1970s ‘letter to parents’ that was widely tweeted last weekend and almost as widely dismissed as fake. Business as usual in the Twittersphere — but there are some lessons here about dating type.

On 28 June, Santa Cruz typographer Adam Lewis Greene submitted his Bible-as-literature project Bibliotheca to Kickstarter for one month of crowdfunding. Within 27 hours, the project had attained its $37,000 funding goal. People kept pledging support. By 26 July, following publication of a Verge article about the project, backing passed the $1 million mark. Two days later, when the fundraising period closed, the project had raised $1,440,345 from 14,884 backers. "No notes, no chapter numbers, no scripture verses. Just the text." What the Success of Bibliotheca Tells Us About the Future of Publishing. [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange
on Aug 7, 2014 -
55 comments

"ON DARK evenings in late 1916, a frail 76-year-old man could often be seen shuffling furtively between The Dove, a pub in west London, and the green and gold turrets of Hammersmith Bridge. Passers-by paid no attention, for there was nothing about Thomas Cobden-Sanderson’s nightly walks to suggest that he was undertaking a peculiar and criminal act of destruction."
The Economist's Christmas Edition tells the story of "the Fight Over the Doves": “No more graceful Roman letter has ever been cut and cast,” [more inside]
posted by chavenet
on Dec 22, 2013 -
23 comments

Once upon a time, typographical practice was anarchy. Printers put in all sizes of spaces in haphazard ways, including after periods. Then, a standard emerged: the single space after a period. Unfortunately, the evil typewriter came along, and for some unknown reason, people began to put wider double spaces after periods. Typographers railed against the practice, but they could do nothing. [more inside]
posted by XMLicious
on Sep 17, 2013 -
104 comments

About MetaFilter

MetaFilter is a weblog that anyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they find on the web. This website exists to break down the barriers between people, to extend a weblog beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members.